Chapter 508 - The Mastermind (Patreon)

My mind wavered, [Parallel Thoughts] coming to a screeching halt and merging back into one at Arachne’s question. I quickly fired it back up, splitting my mind into two. One to look at Iona, one to think about the question.

Iona’s face was going through a rapid metamorphosis. Shocked realization as she made the connection Arachne was implying, then unfocused eyes as she communicated with the goddesses followed by a dozen complex, shifting emotions. I let her be while I did some thinking of my own.

Arachne had spent ages building up to her question, making it clear she had something Important to ask. I wasn’t expecting the sheer gravity and scope of what she was saying and implying.

I looked up above, at the hundreds of billions of gallons of water above my head. Enough to drown a phoenix or three, enough that Arachne felt like she could bad-mouth them down here.

It suddenly felt like nothing at all. Just a thin veneer that could oh-so-easily be boiled off before the full might of an ancient dragon crashed down on our heads. A pathetic barrier between us and utter destruction.

It brought home just how small and fragile I was in the grand scheme of things. I was getting a swollen head. I was practically immortal and untouchable in the Han empire, in mortal lands.

I was still one of the lowest-leveled Sentinels. My class quality made up for a lot of sins and level issues, but I’d been a big fish in a small pond. Sure, Lun’Kat was probably the second-deadliest creature on the planet - [Loremaster] education made it abundantly clear that serpent was the deadliest by miles - but she wasn’t the only one who could eradicate Sanguino with a thought.

It gave me new appreciation for Immortal wars, and how they just destroyed everything. Lun’Kat versus the Guardians had erased an entire nation, and that was arguably an evening tantrum, not a dedicated effort to murder everyone she could.

One of the things that let me sleep at night was most dragons, for one reason or another, weren’t terribly active. They didn’t burn cities indiscriminately, they didn’t demand tribute from subjects, they were effectively in their own bubbles. Sure, anyone going into their territory was likely to have a bad time, and reports of dragons eating livestock were occasionally found to be true, but they usually left elvenoids and civilization as a whole alone.

Now it sounded like one of the oldest, meanest, smartest, and egotistical dragons was stepping down off her high mountain, and putting her thumb on the scale in mortal affairs. That was almost scarier than simply rampaging and trying to burn down the world. Whatever she wanted, whatever she was after, couldn’t be done by burning and destroying. It was deeper, more subtle.

It would be terrifying and world-spanning. I’d first heard rumblings of the Moon Cult back at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft, and I’d seen them here and there in Sanguino. There hadn’t been a trace of them in the Han empire, but that was almost to be expected.

What did she want?

I let the thought go. Iona, the Moon Goddesses, Night and Arachne were far more qualified to try and work out what a dragon from the time of creation was up to. In a sense, I was barely qualified to know her name, let alone guess at her motives and reasoning!

Well, all that assumed the answer was ‘yes’, and it wasn’t some ‘normal’ ancient Immortal elf running around fucking things up. Honestly, I hoped that was the case. It would make all this so much easier.

Iona swallowed a visible lump in her throat before answering.

“Yes.” She croaked out. “She is behind the Moon Cult.”

I slipped my hand into Iona’s and squeezed it, offering what little comfort and reassurance I could against the face of overwhelming might.

I didn’t despair though. My entire life I’d been trained how to handle threats far greater than I could possibly imagine.

Placate. Kill. Drive off. Tolerate.

The second and third options were right out. She’d survived from creation until now. Lun’Kat’s reach was global. She was orchestrating all this from thousands of miles away.

Placate was possible, if we had any idea what she wanted. It was also less palatable than other options. Lun’Kat was, by all indications, terrifyingly intelligent. The way her lair was arranged spoke to the fact that she was no dumb beast, no monster that could be tricked or easily decieved. Any ‘placation’ ran the real risk of Lun’Kat going ‘thanks, now I’m going to just keep doing it.’

Tolerate was looking like the only real option from my usual list. She wasn’t exactly stealing livestock and razing cities to the ground. She just… had a cult. A relatively harmless-looking cult from the sound of it.

If I reframed the issue as ‘how to handle the cult’ instead of Lun’Kat, the monster became much easier. That, and I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t on me to solve the issue.

I had a team. I was a single Sentinel of Exterreri, one among dozens. There was the entire apparatus of a nation-state that could potentially be mobilized to handle the issue.

Me and the rest of the Eventide Eclipse against Lun’Kat? Not a chance.

The entire nation of Exterreri against the Moon Cult? Yeah, I doubted many gambling houses would take bets on that.

Unless it counted as messing with her horde, her treasures? I found that difficult to believe. It wasn’t like she’d openly declared they were hers, and it was expected that mortals conflicted with one another. No, it didn’t make sense. It had been years since I first heard of the moon cult, and it wasn’t like I regularly heard about places devastated by a particular dragon.

I was back. I was recentered. The world was right again.

I was better about dragons, but they still struck a deep, primal fear into my soul. The thought of one of them eyeing me or the place I lived up for destruction filled me with worry and concern, and I didn’t think it was unreasonable.

I was less than a bite to a full-sized dragon. Of course I’d be concerned!

Arachne nodded, the news clearly not a surprise to her.

“Excellent.” She said, and the whiplash felt like it was going to break my neck. Excellent? Excellent!? How was any of this excellent?!?

Arachne clearly noticed my distress and cleared her throat.

“It is far better to have an enemy you know, than one you don’t, even if the known enemy is far more powerful.” She said. “I now have a model of actions that could be taken, moves that are likely feints, issues and problems that could give her leverage, potential weak points, areas of misdirection, and so, so many more.”

I had a thought, a question I should’ve asked at the start.

“What about the Moon Cult got you interested in them?” I asked. Iona looked troubled over it all.

“They appear to have nigh-infinite funding, and are attempting to infiltrate the highest levels of government. I believe it is in a bid to peacefully, through entirely legal means, take over the government itself and suborn it to the will of whoever leads the Moon Cult.” Arachne paused. “A full briefing will be prepared for all Sentinels, where we will discuss what course of action we will be taking.”

She looked at me.

“Naturally, given your recent activities in the Han empire and current duties regarding the phoenixes, you are excused from the meeting and activities should you so choose. There is enough for you to manage for the time being.”

I hesitated and nodded.

“I’ll see how I feel.” I confirmed.

I really wanted to be at one of the big meetings though. It sounded interesting, and if I wasn’t going to be directly fighting the Moon Cult myself, it could be educational.

Arachne clapped her hands together.

“Now! The Moon Cult is a distant, far-off problem. We have a trio of phoenixes who are displeased with us, and with some luck you are able to placate. A few dozen Sentinels have been activated and are in the area, and a pair of Ranger teams are standing by. I don’t think we will have cause to use them, but know - we are here. We are watching. We have your back.”

That was reassuring. I wasn’t being thrown into the phoenix’s nest with no backup.

Arachne gave me directions to a private garden deep inside Sanguino that the three phoenixes had been offered as a resting place while Auri was located, and bid us goodbye. She was still busy being The Spider, tracking the going-ons of every single activity in Sanguino. Speaking of the garden-park and Arachne, her threads didn’t extend into the area, the flames having burned them away. She was effectively blind to the going-ons in there.

Hmm. From what I remembered of the leadership rotation, it was almost Night’s turn to be in charge.

My fiancee was deep in thought as we left, and I let her be. When she wanted to talk, she’d talk.

Iona and I popped out at Castle Stormwatch, which shook her out of her funk.

“This is your show. Where do you want me, and how?” She asked.

I spent a moment thinking about it. Putting it politely, Iona and I weren’t at the level of the strongest Sentinels. If there were a dozen Sentinels already in position, Iona wouldn’t be able to do much. I needed her mostly for moral and emotional support.

“Somewhere distant, elevated, and easy for me to spot.” I said. “Inside of bow range, outside of contained fires range.”

She briskly nodded.

“I’ll be there.” The [Paladin] said.

I was soon at the garden where the phoenixes were having their every whim tended to. Expensive, annoying, but Arachne, Command, and the political bodies seemed to think this was the best solution - don’t screw with the powerful phoenixes, they’ll go away soon enough.

A ring of guards were around the scorched garden, not letting idle gawkers in. I spotted a familiar face among them.

“Atlas! Hey Atlas!” I waved to Auri’s favorite guard, some puzzle pieces clicking. He was here because he was also Auri’s minder, wasn’t he? I wondered if he had a class relating to it by now. The quality would be insane, but experience would be difficult.

He snapped off a salute, some of the other guards giving us the stink-eye.

“Sentinel Dawn!” He enthusiastically greeted me, a murmur passing through the guards in waves. “Delighted to see you back. No Auri?” He asked, looking around like he expected her to pop out from under my tunic.

Which, to be fair, was something Auri occasionally did. I shook my head.

“No. She’s on her way back.” I wasn’t about to reveal that Sentinel Spark had been dispatched personally to retrieve her. Given how fast Arachne had been able to verify my story about being at the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft back in the day, I frankly expected Spark to show up any second now, my flaming friend on his shoulder.

Speaking of the Sentinels, I could see a few of them here and there. Sentinel Skater was the most visible, looping around and around on large ice tracks high up in the sky. Devour had a scaled cape on, his hands on the hood, ready to put it on. Ooze was on top of a building, bouncing up and down.

Atlas grimaced, and waved me in.

“Well, it’s all you. Work your magic.” He said.

I walked in. Stepping over the threshold was like stepping into an oven, my skin immediately prickling with the heat.

Interesting. It couldn’t all be fire then, I was immune.

The garden was torched and scarred. Once upon a time there might’ve been a [Gardener] constantly causing the flowers to bloom, scatter, fold, and bloom again, but now there were just burnt-out trees and piles of ashes around. Blinding light and flames roared in the center, clearly marking where the birds were hanging out.

The gently rolling hills quickly gave way to three birds sitting in the middle, each one on a charred tree, surveying their kingdom of ash.

Auri looked like a hummingbird. She had the size, shape, colors, and sound of one. Like Auri was a hummingbird, each one of the phoenixes was modeled after a different type of bird.

The first one was an eagle owl, burning feathers as dark as night. Dark flames danced in its eyes, an eternal blaze of Pyronox promised to all those who’d cross it. An amulet hung around its neck, a large agate gem sparkling in the center.

[Long-Range Identify] brought back [Mage - 3982].

[*ding!* [Long-Range Identify] leveled up! 448 -> 470]

Holy shitballs. The phoenix was just a hair from divinity and becoming a god. No wonder Arachne and everyone was treating them with kid gloves - the phoenix had over a thousand levels on the strongest Sentinels in the country!

Stopping my hands from trembling, I looked at the second one. A heron blazed with blinding Radiance, threatening to cap my [Radiance Resistance] for all time.

[Mage - 2814]. More reasonable, more manageable. Exterreri could, if we worked hard at it, handle this phoenix… before its resurrection came into play. Not that managing a hostile mage was ever good.

[*ding!* [Long-Range Identify] leveled up! 470 -> 485]

The third was modeled after a dinosaur, but nothing said phoenixes had to only look like ‘modern’ birds. A great tupandactylus was like a pterodactyl with a massive crest on its head, burning with the more traditional Inferno flames.

[Mage - 3148] the tag said. Another massive powerhouse. The phoenixes had sent a number of powerful representatives.

My skill *dinged!* again, and I spammed it on the three phoenixes as hard as I could, spinning out a new thought process to grind out some quick and easy levels inside of a second. Why not?

[*ding!* [Long-Range Identify] leveled up! 485-> 528]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Butterfly Mystic] has leveled up to level 643->645! +8 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +70 Speed, +70 Vitality, +70 Mana, +70 Mana Regen, +70 Magic power, +70 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Strength, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]

Huh. I suppose this did technically count as seeing new magics, and under the influence of a phoenix, it was no surprise my levels were going up.

I should check on Atlas’s level. He must’ve gotten a ton since Auri and I first showed up.

[*ding!* You’ve unlocked the Class Skill [Golden Feather Tempest]! Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

[*ding!* You’ve unlocked the Class Skill [Blazing Presence of the Phoenix]! Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

[*ding!* You’ve unlocked the Class Skill [Phoenix Dawn Halo]! Would you like to replace a skill with it?]

Uh.

Well, shit. Thank you [Butterfly Mystic] for quickly and easily picking up on skills I see! Nothing like a stupidly high-level Radiance phoenix to get good skills offered, and those were just the start! I had to wonder if I could pick up anything really nice from the heron…

No! Bad thought! I was here to try and resolve a problem, not see how many skills I could grab! They were tempting, I’d need to look at them properly later on…

I approached, and the owl put its claw on its amulet.

“You do not come bearing food or gifts, nor do you have the look of one of those talkers. Who are you?” His ‘voice’ came from the amulet.

I bowed respectfully.

“I am Elaine, bonded companion of Aoife Auri Stentor, the phoenix you are looking for. I-”

My world exploded into flames.